Two allelic Arabidopsis mutants, leaf wilting 2-1 and leaf wilting 2-2 (lew2-1 and lew2-2), were isolated in a screen for plants with altered drought stress responses. The mutants were more tolerant ...to drought stress as well as to NaCl, mannitol and other osmotic stresses. lew2 mutant plants accumulated more abscisic acid (ABA), proline and soluble sugars than the wild type. The expression of a stress-inducible marker gene RD29A, a proline synthesis-related gene P5CS (pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthase) and an ABA synthesis-related gene SDR1 (alcohol dehydrogenase/reductase) was higher in lew2 than in the wild type. Map-based cloning revealed that the lew2 mutants are new alleles of the AtCesA8/IRX1 gene which encodes a subunit of a cellulose synthesis complex. Our results suggest that cellulose synthesis is important for drought and osmotic stress responses including drought induction of gene expression.
DNA phylogenetic comparisons have shown that morphology-based species recognition often underestimates fungal diversity. Therefore, the need for accurate DNA sequence data, tied to both correct ...taxonomic names and clearly annotated specimen data has never been greater. Furthermore, the growing number of molecular ecology projects employing high-throughput sequencing require fast and effective methods for en masse species assignments. In this paper we focus on selecting and re-annotating a set of marker reference sequences that represent each currently accepted order of Fungi. The particular focus is on sequences from the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region in the nuclear ribosomal cistron, derived from type specimens and/or ex-type cultures. Re-annotated and verified sequences were deposited in a curated, public database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), RefSeq Targeted Loci (RTL), and will be visible during routine BLAST searches with NR prefixed accession numbers. A set of standards and protocols is proposed in order to improve the data quality of new sequences and we suggest how type and other reference sequences can be used to improve identification of Fungi.
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-binding protein (PBP) is an important coactivator for PPARgamma and other transcription factors. PBP is an integral component of a multiprotein ...thyroid hormone receptor-associated protein (TRAP)/vitamin D(3) receptor-interacting protein (DRIP)/activator-recruited cofactor (ARC) complex required for transcriptional activity. To study the regulation of PBP by cellular signaling pathways, we identified the phosphorylation sites of PBP. Using a combination of in vitro and in vivo approaches and mutagenesis of PBP phosphorylation sites, we identified six phosphorylation sites on PBP: one exclusive protein kinase A (PKA) phosphorylation site at serine 656, two protein kinase C (PKC) sites at serine 796 and serine 1345, a common PKA/PKC site at serine 756, and two extracellular signal-regulated kinase 2 sites of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) family at threonine 1017 and threonine 1444. Binding of PBP to PPARgamma1 or retinoid-X-receptor for 9-cis-retinoic acid (RXR) is independent of their phosphorylation states, implying no changes in protein-protein interaction after modification by phosphorylation. Overexpression of RafBXB, an activated upstream kinase of the MAPK signal transduction pathway, exerts a significant additive inductive effect on PBP coactivator function. This effect is significantly diminished by overexpression of RafBXB301, a dominant negative mutant of RafBXB. These results identify phosphorylation as a regulatory modification event of PBP and demonstrate that PBP phosphorylation by Raf/MEK/MAPK cascade exerts a positive effect on PBP coactivator function. The functional role of PKA and PKC phosphorylation sites in PBP remains to be elucidated.
The notion of theoretical strength, the critical stress at which a perfect crystal under uniform loading becomes structurally unstable, is extended to non-uniform loading. A position-dependent defect ...nucleation criterion has been derived and applied in molecular dynamics (MD) and finite-element simulations of dislocation emission in single-crystal nanoindentation. The resulting measure has the physical meaning of a local stiffness; it provides a rigorous basis for modeling the incipient plasticity in a thin-film material. Furthermore, a close connection has been shown to exist between the initial unstable elastic wave and the final atomistic defect.
The process parameters such as the compositions of inner and outer aqueous phase and emulsification technique of the primary emulsion were optimized to decrease the burst release of BSA from ...biodegradable polymer microspheres in double emulsion method. It was found that diminished burst release of -14% was achieved for the microspheres produced by formulations, where no phosphate was present in the inner water phase (non-buffered system). Primary emulsion made by probe sonication rather than homogenization or mechanical stirring led to microspheres with insignificant burst effect. Microspheres obtained using 0.1% aqueous Tween 80® solution as the outer aqueous phase, frequently exhibit reduced burst effect of 2.7%. Low microsphere yield (52.1%), however, was observed. Microsphere yield was, therefore, enhanced by addition of additive such as sodium chloride, glucose or mannitol into the outer aqueous phase. Decrease in BSA entrapment was observed in the presence of sodium chloride, but reduction in entrapment efficiency was observed in the case of glucose. Burst release increased from 2.7% to 9.5% or 3.4% as 2.5% sodium chloride or 7.5% glucose was added into the outer aqueous phase respectively. Marked burst release (>20%) was observed in the presence of additive of higher concentration independent of sodium chloride or glucose. As far as surfactant type was concerned, diminished burst was found when PVP or Tween 80® rather than PVA was utilized as the surfactant during microsphere preparation. In addition to PLGA, the copolymers of L-lactide (LLA) and dimethyl trimethylene carbonate (DTC) or trimethylene carbonate (TMC) were also evaluated. Insignificant burst effect was found for the microspheres composed of DTC or TMC copolymers.
Si–B–N ceramic hard films were prepared by injecting N2+SiH4+B2H6 reaction gas into an argon DC arc plasma jet at reduced pressure. XPS, FT-IR, SEM, and microhardness tester were used to characterize ...the samples, and the optical properties of Ar discharge plasma jet with and without reaction gas injection were studied by a multichannel high-resolution spectroscopy and a wide spectral range spectroscopy. It is found that the deposited films are mainly composed of Si, B, N and O. The film surface presents a dense structure with hundred-nanometer-sized clusters, and the hardness of sample is greatly enhanced. When the reaction gas is injected into the plasma jet, the emission of excited atoms in the background plasma is greatly reduced, and the growth rate of Si–B–N film shows a significant downward trend as the reaction gas injection ring or substrate holder is moved away from the torch nozzle. A slight enhancement of background plasma emission is observed near the substrate surface with increasing the distance between gas injection ring and torch nozzle, which indicates that the suppression effect of the reactive gas injection on the background plasma emission and the activation efficiency of the reaction gas are weakened, thereby reducing the deposition rate.
•SiBN films were prepared by injecting N2+SiH4+B2H6 gas into an argon DC arc plasma.•The background plasma emission is greatly reduced when the reaction gas is injected.•The growth rate decreases as injection ring or substrate is moved away from nozzle.•The background emission near the substrate enhances as the ring is away from nozzle.
Abstract There are no effective treatments for intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Although inflammation is a potential therapeutic target, there is a dearth of information about time-dependent and ...cell-specific changes in the expression of inflammation-related genes. Using the collagenase-induced ICH model in rats and real-time quantitative RT-PCR we monitored mRNA levels of markers of glial activation, pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, enzymes responsible for cytokine activation and several matrix metalloproteases at 6 h and 1, 3 and 7 days after ICH onset. For the most highly up-regulated genes, immunohistochemistry was then used to identify cell-specific protein expression. Finally, minocycline, a drug widely reported to reduce damage in several models of brain injury, was used to test the hypothesis that it can reduce up-regulation of inflammation-related genes when administered using a clinically relevant dosing regime: intraperitoneal injection beginning 6 h after ICH. Our results show a complex inflammatory response, with different brain cell types producing several pro- and anti-inflammatory molecules for at least 7 days after ICH onset. Included is the first demonstration that astrocytes are an important source of interleukin-1beta (IL-1β), interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and MMP-12. Importantly, our results demonstrate that while delayed minocycline treatment effectively reduces early up-regulation of TNFα and MMP-12, its efficacy is lost when treatment is extended for up to a week, and it does not reduce several other genes associated with microglia activation. These results suggest caution in extrapolating to ICH the promising results of minocycline treatment in other models of brain injury.
In this paper, we consider an energy harvesting (EH) two-way (TW) dual-relay network, including one non-EH relay and one EH relay equipped with a finite-sized battery. In the network, a space-time ...transmission protocol with space-time network coding is designed, and an optimal transmission policy for the EH relay is proposed by using a stochastic solar EH model. In this optimal policy, the long-term paired-wise error probability (PEP) of the system is minimized by adapting the EH relay's transmission power to the knowledge of its current battery energy, channel fading status, and causal solar EH information. The designed problem is formulated as a Markov decision process framework, and the conditional capability of the contribution to PEP by the EH relay is adopted as the reward function. We uncover a monotonic and limited difference structure for the expected total discounted reward. Furthermore, a non-conservative property and a monotonic structure of the optimal policy are revealed. Based on the optimal policy and its special structures, the expectation, lower and upper bounds, and asymptotic approximation of the PEP are computed and an interesting result on the system diversity performance is revealed, i.e., the full diversity order can be achieved only if the EH capability index, a metric to quantify the EH node's capability of harvesting and storing energy, approaches to infinity; otherwise, the EH diversity order is only equal to one, and the coding gain of the network is increasing with the EH capability index at this time. Furthermore, a full diversity criterion for the EH TW dual-relay network is proposed. Finally, computer simulations confirm our theoretical analysis and show that our proposed optimal policy outperforms other compared policies.
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